A life in miniature at Carsphairn SWI
On 16th April, Dorothy Faulds welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked Alison Metcalfe, a member of Carsphairn SWI to lead everybody through her lifetime interest in planning, creating and making in miniature.
Alison began by explaining that her grandfather gave her a dolls’ house when she was six years old just before she left to live in South Africa. At the age of nine Alison returned to the UK without her dolls’ house and decided to create her own using shoe boxes for the main structure and match boxes to fashion into furniture. A visit to Windsor Castle and in particular Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House compounded Alison’s fascination and fuelled a passion that evolved and changed constantly, beginning with creating a house for her daughter.
Alison explained how she accessed items and parts for her builds and contents from across the globe with the USA being a key source. The set of skills Alison accrued grew exponentially as she looked into different ways to bring a vast range of settings and people to life. She led classes on how to make, paint and clothe porcelain dolls among other themes. Members were spellbound as Alison passed round examples of her work. Torches and magnifying glasses were put to use to examine the detail of buildings, rooms, furniture and dolls covering many different settings. Being able to examine these closely made the experience more immersive for members. Helen gave Alison a vote of thanks which was heartily endorsed by everyone. Time had been suspended and members had stepped into a different world. Refreshments were then provided by Janice Gordon and Helen Grunshaw.
With everyone enjoying their supper, President, Irene McCreath led members through the business of the evening. This included reports from previous events including the Quiz Night at Shawhead the night before. Two members from Townhead Institute joined four members from Carsphairn, to form a team (Dolly Mixtures!). It was a very busy night with lots of head scratching, tasty refreshments and discussion. After a close-run thing the Dolly Mixtures came out on top (no thanks to their knitting contribution). Many thanks however to the members of Shawhead Institute for organising such an enjoyable evening. Other business included planning for the Summer Outing and opting in to different Federation events. A reminder was given that the National SWI survey closes on 29th May 2026.
Alison had kindly agreed to judge the competitions. The winners were as follows: -
Vase of Daffodils (Watret Trophy), 1 Nancy White, 2 Dorothy Faulds.
Marmalade 1. Nancy White.
Flower of the Month 1. Nancy White, 2. Jennifer Harvie, 3. Dorothy Faulds.
Dorothy then gave a report from the last Federation delegate meeting with feedback on the Ruralympics, Spring Show and mention of the forthcoming Stewartry Show. Irene thanked everyone for their contribution to the meeting. The hall and kitchen were tidied up and everyone headed for home with a new appreciation for the world in miniature.